Europe is living through an autumn of unusual discontent. What protesters from Paris to Milan to Madrid share is a deepening anxiety about the future and a growing anger at the gap between what they expect from their governments and what they feel governments are delivering, whether the issue is unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, the spiralling cost of living or failing schools.

The electoral consequences of the failure to get a grip on this public anger are already with us. Spain goes to the polls next month in a snap election called after parliament voted down key housing reforms. France begins the process of electing a new president in April, while Poland, Italy and a string of smaller states will vote before the end of 2027. The stakes could not be higher.

At the same time, national leaders face mounting pressures from abroad. Issues such as Ukraine, uncertainty over US security guarantees and economic competition with China demand more European cooperation, even as national politics makes this increasingly difficult. Governments face popular demands to deliver security and prosperity, just as their capacity to do so independently is shrinking. This leaves Europe with a difficult question: how can countries whose leaders are increasingly struggling at home find the common ground needed to act together abroad?

If the EU did not exist, Europeans would have every reason to invent it. Together, its members form a market of 450 million people and an economy of almost €19tn, the third largest after the US and China. No individual EU country comes close to........

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